Monday, October 31, 2011

The FBI video is remarkable: Russian spies digging up payoff money in New Jersey, handing off a bag in a New York train station and passing information in furtive meetings and “brush bys.”

It’s all part of the surveillance video released today of a decade-long FBI undercover operation that brought down Anna Chapman and the Russian spy ring operating in the United States.

The videos were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by ABC News and other news outlets .

In conjunction with the release of the videos, the FBI has also released more than 1,000 pages of highly redacted documents from the case that was dubbed Operation Ghost Stories because it was reminiscent of the Cold War’s cloak-and-dagger spy games.

The FBI tracked the spy ring known as the “Illegals” program across the United States with FBI agents and the Justice Department arresting the 10 spies June 27, 2010.

The case captured international attention with Russian bombshell Chapman providing an undercurrent of sex appeal and international intrigue in one of the biggest spy cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Chapman covertly communicated with Russian government officials from the Russian Mission to the United Nations by using private wireless networks sent from her laptop computer.